


Merry Christmas, Everyone (But Steve)

by TheIntelligentHufflepuff



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Attempt at Humor, Christmas, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-19 00:03:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13111401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIntelligentHufflepuff/pseuds/TheIntelligentHufflepuff
Summary: Steve doesn't have the best luck with Christmas.(But New Year's goes a bit better)





	Merry Christmas, Everyone (But Steve)

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas! For your present you get the result of a stressful December, with a fluffy ending because it *is* the season to be merry. If there's any weirdness it's cos it's not beta'd and I'm posting on mobile, but hopefully there won't be. 
> 
> POTENTIAL CONTENT WARNING: a sixteen year old does get drunk in this. If that's likely to affect your mental health, keep safe and skip down to the second section.

**I.**

Steve's first work Christmas party hadn't ended well. Not, he’d rush to assure anyone who asked, because he was enough of a dick to start a fight on Christmas Eve. It's just...he wasn't expecting the kiss.

See, his boss was the greengrocer. The greengrocer also ran a small dairy. Steve and the grocer’s young sons ran the tills and arranged the displays of fruit and vegetables, the greengrocer did most of the organisation, and the greengrocer’s daughter flit between making calls to run the out-of-city dairy and keeping the grocer’s books. At Christmas time the dairy staff travelled up to Brooklyn, the sons gathered up their friends, the restaurant next door came calling on their principle supplier, and they all crowded into the upstairs flat to have a grand old time. This was fine. What was not fine was the fact that, having had a few drinks, Steve had started to become unsteady and Mary the grocer’s daughter had taken it upon herself to become a handsy, overeager people prop.

She may have had a few too many drinks.

Either way, the result of this was the- very amusing, he’d been assured- sight of skinny sixteen year old Steve Rogers being half hoisted around by an equally short but considerably stronger eighteen year old woman in her peach pink Sunday best. Again, this would have been fine, though embarrassing, if Mary hadn't mistaken his indignant wriggling for something a lot less innocent.

And kissed him.

Thankfully, Steve couldn't remember what either of them said before or after, or what she did to make her eldest brother screech in horror. What he could recall with perfect clarity, however, was their lips meeting, her quickly parting his, and him in abject shock, solidly biting her tongue.

Bucky got a kick out of the story at least.

**II.**

Three years later Steve had no work, and neither did Bucky. The greengrocer had died and when May’s husband took over, he’d fired Steve despite her protests. At almost the same time the shipping company running Bucky's part of the docks had gone bust, putting him and a hundred other men out of work in the middle of December. With the entirety of their collective savings blown on rent, Christmas Day found Steve and Bucky huddled on the sofa and relying on what their neighbors could spare to eat.

“This is shit.” Bucky observed.

“Not the food.” He added, because Mrs O’Leary’s roast potatoes were divine “This Christmas.”

Steve nodded, subtly manoeuvring his cold feet under Bucky's thigh “But mass was nice.”

“For you.” Bucky replied pointedly.

Steve slammed his head against the back of the sofa in frustration, nearly doing his skull in in the process. Bucky snorted.

A few moments passed in silence, broken only by the rustling of their newspaper paper chains in the breeze blowing in through the cracked window.

“I guess it's kinda Dickensian.” Bucky muttered.

“Doesn't feel very artistic.” Steve tried to reply, except he was interrupted halfway through by a sudden shiver that was not, thank you very much, in any way pathetic.

Except it may have seemed so because Bucky threw an arm around Steve's shoulders in companionable misery and agreed, “No. It doesn't.”

**III**

With his brand new metabolism, Steve reckoned he could probably eat an entire turkey, its trimmings, and dessert without feeling too full. He wouldn't mind trying it, as a matter of fact. A full three course meal and wines to match would be just the ticket, in this Nazi compound.

Nazi: The Original. Not Hydra, The Apocalyptic Edition.

Steve sighed pointedly for the hundredth time that evening. Opposite the cell, the kid posted on guard twitched. So far as Steve could make out, they’d put him there mostly in the hopes that Steve would break out and kill him.

Guard Kid was a very bad Nazi; he kept grimacing at Steve's grimacing and fiddling with the cards in his pockets like he wanted to invite him to play.

Steve was going to recruit him.

Just as soon as he’d broken out of the many, many chains they'd tied him up in.

Which he was going to do. Any second now. Just watch. It would be easy, he-

The chains didn't even do him the courtesy of groaning.

Under Guard Kid’s pittiying gaze, Steve titled his head back in defeat. He hoped the Commandos came to get him before the head scientist decided carving the turkey just wasn't enough.

**IV**

They spent the next Christmas walking. Peggy had seemed sorry for it at the briefing held somewhere on the French border, but there wasn't a lot any of them could do except try to make the most of it. For the Commandos that involved an unreasonable quantity of jokes on the theme of Steve's misadventure the previous year. For Steve, that involved bearing the jokes and the memory of the truly impressive (but highly controlled) freak out Bucky had had afterwards. Overall it was a normal day at the front: walk for miles, break for minutes, walk for miles again.

It was just a shame that Monty broke his ankle halfway through.

“I'm a damned elite!” He hissed, successfully hobbling a gargantuan two more steps before collapsing in a heap at Mortia’s feet.

“Definitely.” Mortia reassured him dispassionately, watching him hiss like a boiled kettle. Steve raised an eyebrow pointedly; show of masculinity complete, the medic eventually got down to doing his job.

Aside, Bucky turned to him and asked “What now?”

Steve massaged his brow with cool, leather clad fingers “We get him a crutch, take the B route and hope he doesn't die.”

“Great.” Jones muttered.

Steve slapped him on the back and advised him to pretend he was one of the magi.

**V**

The 25th of December 2012 sucked, and Steve refused to call it Christmas. First of all, he found out that barely anyone made paper chains anymore. Then he discovered that people put their decorations up right at the beginning of December, which was objectively okay but an insult to the sacred memory of Steve Rogers’ childhood Christmas Eves. Next came the revelation of the slew of mediocre adaptations of A Christmas Carol. Finally, he realised that he didn't even need to bother about any of that, because he had no friends or family to spend the festive season with.

He gave up trying to human at around 1pm and went to bed.

**+I**

They didn't do Christmas in Wakanda but Steve didn't mind- the New Years festivities were a marathon of food, drink, music and dancing that would induce a smile in Scrooge himself. As it was, Steve found himself dancing (much to the amusement of those skilled in the art) in a group including Sam, T’Challa’s sister Shuri, Wanda, and Natasha while Bucky and Clint took turns alternately catcalling and harassing him. As the tempo changed to something Steve definitely couldn't keep up with, he bowed out. Laughing, he plopped himself down next to Bucky, who to Steve's delight slung a friendly arm across his shoulders.

“Dejavu much?”

Steve shook his head “Pretty sure it was me who was the wallflower.”

Bucky smirked nervously “Not what I was referring to.”

Steve cant his head “Oh?”

Clint beat a smooth retreat as Bucky turned, facing Steve head on.

“I was referring to the feelings.”

Steve's breath caught.

“The feelings of what?” he whispered.

Bucky didn't reply straight away, seeming to argue with himself for a few moments before reaching a conclusion. Steve felt Bucky's flesh hand curl into the sweaty spikes of his hair, and was so distracted by it that he almost didn't catch Bucky's next words.

“Feelings of want. Longing. Desire.” he paused, collecting himself as Steve watched with bated breath “Love.”

Steve grinned, dimly aware that the party-goers around them were singing a rousing song in true cinematic fashion   
“Those feelings.”

Bucky frowned, and swatted Steve lightly on the head “Do you want this or not?”

“Yes!” Steve laughed, before Bucky had even finished asking “Always.”

“Good.” Bucky said. Then he was kissing Steve like it was his life mission come to completion, and neither of them spoke for at least half an hour.   
Technically, they missed the new year.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> (I've seen Mortia as the medic in a lot of fics so I went with that though according to the Wikia he isn't actually)


End file.
